Zurich, Furka Pass,Geneva and back to Paris

The world's a smaller place now

Geneva

Found all the bloody irons!

Furka, furka, furka

Snowball fight!

Julie Andrews, safe at last.

What a dump

Worth the drive.

Swiss safety

He saw me and waved.

Lunch at the Gerig

mmmmm, good

"I should not have eaten that."

The mighty SEAT

Well here we are. Paris again after a huge couple of days traversing Switzerland. We've crossed it twice, once by train from Venice and yesterday we crossed from Zurich to Geneva through the famous Furka Pass.

We wanted to do something spectacular after enjoying Venice so much and Switzerland was between us and Paris, our next connection. We managed to get a train to Zurich, a very pleasant university town, and hire a car for the drive to Geneva.

The landscape was the drawcard and we wanted the freedom to stop where wanted. Taking photographs from trains hasn't got much to offer the traveler. It was a great decision because we just guessed our way over the alps with the help of a map and managed to see the most spectacular sights yet.

The Furka (yes, it is very tempting to make puns) has the most turns per kilometre, or something like that, than any other road as it zig-zags its way over the range. It featured on Top Gear recently. We reached 2600 meters (about 8000 ft) at the top but it was beautiful sunny day and a balmy 10 degrees outside. We've had so much luck with weather. It has only rained when we were traveling by train.

There was two metres of snow at the edge of the road and the traffic was light. We were between seasons and it was Friday. Lucky. The pictures should be pretty good.

We managed a girly snow-ball fight, where no one was actually hit, and a great big Swiss lunch at one of the alpine towns. There were a lot of motorcyclists and signs encouraging them to come to the area. There were old bikes on columns to show businesses who wanted their patronage. I'd love to do that road on a bike. Though to be honest the drop-offs and the bollards don't make for comfortable 'come-offs'.

We made it into busy Geneva traffic after 400k of both mountain and Autobahn driving. We were pretty happy with ourselves. I guessed the route by seeing where a famous train went and connected the dots. Pretty happy with myself.

The hotel at Zurich was great, the hotel at Geneva less so. This is the problem when internet access is so difficult to get. One has to grab at whatever is available instead of researching it properly. I'd like to have wireless access like my mobile phone. It would be so handy.

We are in East Paris now. It's definitely a different place to the Paris we first met. We are staying in a big Novotel because Paris was booked out. The disadvantaged live out here on the edge of the Metro, there is little to no alcohol available, even in the biggest supermarket we've ever seen. We got around that little problem with a visit to a Japanese restaurant just over the road. Hot sake and a bamboo boat-load of sushi made us the happy little Vegemites we like to be. "More sake?", the owner would wonder as he weighed our empty mini-carafe. "Yes please!" we nodded.

We take the Chunnel to Heathrow tomorrow for the big anti-climactic trip home. We stop in at Singapore but we don't want to stop over. Our friend Shami will pick us up from the airport (Thanks Shami!) and my son Levi will pick us up from her place.

It will all be done.

As I said in the photo up top, the world is a smaller place for me now. I'm glad that I've done all the miles and am also happy with the way I've done them. I'm familiar with a great many places now and I've finally moved from pictures on a page to extended experiences in my mind of all those iconic places I've grown up knowing about.

The best thing is that I feel like I've gained a confidence with travel. I have moved beyond the chicken coop and into the long grass.